5 Great (And 5 Not So Great) Stealth Video Games

Also released in 1998, Thief, like Commandos, is considered another forefather of the genre.

Borne of an environment of "hard as nails" gaming, before checkpoint-led fodder became the norm, Thief: The Dark Project was all stealth. As master thief Garrett, you were there only to steal, not Errol Flynn your way through a swathe of enemies. There was a slight supernatural story to it, but it kept the main theme throughout: theft.

The last entry in the series, simply named Thief, tried to recreate that in the latest generation of gaming. Shame, then, that it couldn't pull it off.

It's not a terrible game. It just wasn't very good. Taking the open level approach and switching to linear(ish) levels hindered creativity, and locking level progression halfway through made previous areas inaccessible. But the biggest change was Garrett himself.

Gone was the, "I'm only here to steal" attitude, instead becoming a gruff, brooding pawn in a larger game. It caused a bit of a tonal shift, as the once-reserved and sardonic thief becomes an anti-hero in preventing dark forces emerging.

Whilst not a massive deviation from series tradition and boasting some nice visuals for the early days of the latest console generation, it failed to win both new and old fans over. After its lacklustre release in 2014, the series has been dormant since.